Eco mod my log splitter
 

I got a 27ton log splitter from Lowe's so I don't break my back splitting wood.
I read a ton of reviews.
Found 4 reoccurring things, on machines put together by Lowe's employees.
1 Not put together very well.
Cause, Labor problem, people don't care or aren't smart enough to do it right.
Remedy, check nuts, bots, hydraulic connectors.
2 gas tank, crank case has water in there.
Cause, they're stored outside, caps get stolen by people or left loose.

Remedy, check for signs of water in fuel tank and crank case.
3 the wheel bearings fail.
Cause, it has wheelbarrow wheels on it.
Remedy, don't pull the thing at high speeds, put it on a trailer when transporting if speeds will hit 45mph or be at 35mph for more than a few minutes.
Final solution, put a 1.062 inch trailer axle on there, with little trailer tires.
4 people take it home and it don't start for whatever reason.
Cause, don't know, don't care, potentially a lot of things.
Remedy, make sure it stars before leaving with it.
The funniest problem.
5 a guy went to put his in vertical mode and the lines weren't long enough for the thing to stand up.
Cause, lol.
Remedy, do a full ops ckeck.

Ecomods:
Make sure that the carb has the right jet in there.
Put a bigger hydraulic pump on there, a 16gpm.
Put the original 11gpm hydraulic pump on an electronic motor, add plumbing so both can work together or independently.
Steam punk it, put a few gauges on it, a high pressure gauge and return low pressure gauge, some where they won't get smashed.

You might be thinking "it won't have enough power to run a 16gpm pump". Correct, normally it wouldn't.
A 27t log splitter, with a 4.5 inch cylinder and 11gpm pump should run a 2gpm high pressure pump at about 3,500psi and a 9gpm low pressure pump, probably set around 500psi.
Normally a 16gpm pump is a 3gpm high pressure pump and a 13gpm low pump.
I found an odd ball 16gpm pump that does 1.7gpm on the high side and 14.1gpm on the low side.

Worst case scenario the 16gpm pump is too big and a I have to put bigger engine on there. Boohoo.
I'll probably run the 11gpm pump on an electric motor, an 1,800rpm turning it into a 5.5gpm pump. Running it at full speed is probably a bit too much for a single phase motor.

Well I was wrong about it having cheap wheelbarrow wheels.
It has really nice wheelbarrow wheels.
It has cheap all in one tire, rim hub wheels that appear to have real wheel bearings.
I got one with a dust cap missing on one wheel, so that bearing full of dirt. I guess I can see if they used actual grease or corrosion preventive goop.
For $1,406 out the door.
Normal price with sales tax should be over $1,700.
I ain't getting this thing on the trailer by my self or even with 2 people so it needs to be towable.

i don't use one often enough to justify the up front and maintenance costs. A local rental outfit has the smaller ones but I usually do enough volume and size to justify spending a little more. this costs me $135 per 8 hour day.

Mighty Ox Wood Splitter, model LS-30, high production log splitting

http://www.mighty-ox.com/img/m-LS30-2.jpg

Definitely has the wrong jet in the carb, it stinks from like 50 feet away and sputters when I go to wide open throttle.
I removed the WAI to try and give it CAI, didn't help much.
It was 45 degrees f out, in degrees C that's kind of chilly. The hydraulics got quite warm, hot enough so I didn't want to leave my hand on the cylinder, so it will probably need a cooler.
I actually did read the manual.
It has a 14gpm pump, 4.375 bore runs a max of 3,750psi.
A remote throttle would be nice.

Oil coolers are normally aluminum, thin walled, have delicate fins. Not a great match for something as destructive and chaotic as a log splitter. For a normal oil cooler to last it would need some sort of protective enclosure.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
Probably stick 2 of these under there.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1670736407

Maybe you can get a chrome perf metal heat shield off some motorcycle exhaust system.

Need maximum air flow. Plus the cooler fins apear to taper to about 1mm and the main tube looks to be about 3mm thick. As long as I don't intentionally throw wood at it will be fine.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1670781267

When we built my dad's splitter 15 years ago, instead of any kind of cooler, we just oversized the reservoir. It's a structural component acting as the primary part of the frame, 6x12 steel tubing and about 4 or 5 feet long, probably holds 8 or 10 gallons.

This one holds and is supposed to have 6.5 gallons of hydraulic oil. I bet it has at least 5 gallons.
Might be low, it only had about 8 out of 21 ounces of oil in the crank case.
I cleaned and packed the wheel bearings. Each bearing had a few CCs of corrosion preventing goop on them definitely going to fail going down the road. Put at least an ounce of grease in each hub.
If the spindles are the same I could definitely put some real trailer tires on there.

First mod will likely be temperature and pressure gauges on the hydraulic return. The return is easy access to the hottest fluid that's at low pressure. And I'll add a pressure gauge that way when the pressure doesn't change or doesn't change very much as the fluid warms I'll know the filter is clogged and needs to be changed.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1670871810

Sharpening the splitting ram has worked pretty good. Now it slices knots. It was kind of blunt and just ripped them apart and/or crushed them until the wood yielded.
Still having a heck of a time getting smaller carb jets. All the go-kart performance stuff is ridiculously over jetted. I have a 0.026'' or 0.65mm jet. I need something smaller than that, anything, i dont care. The smallest after market jet I can find is a 28 thousands, appears to be intended for a suped up 160cc go-kart engine.
So I ordered both 4,000 to 6,000ft and a 6,000 to 10,000ft jets for my engine. But they are on back order so who knows when those will come in. I'm at 4,400ft.
I'm going to see if I can gut out the muffler to get some more air flow. There's probably a spark arrestor in there I can take out.
I run the engine with the warm air intake cover off. I get soot around exhaust with the WAI cover on. I might as well run CAI and get the power if I'm going to be wasting fuel.

I may have found a smaller jet, actually in stock, on ebay.
I didn't know what size I needed but I know what size I have so I just started making up sizes and searching for them till i got a hit. The next size smaller that I can find is a 0.62mm.
I ordered 2, as the log splitter and wood chipper have almost the same engines.
If it don't work I'm out $17.

You can shrink the hole with a ball bearing (Old style sheet metal trick) silver solder it closed and redrill if you can tolerate some inprecision from flow eddies. The many times I took a jet from #30 to 25 I didn't notice any flow issues, but my mechanic friend had a brain hemorrhage.

I was about to so that. Then I got the local Kohler guy to backorder me some jets. I got impatient and ordered those 62s.
The problem with redrilling those holes is I'm needing something smaller than 0.65mm or 0.026''.
But it should be good or at least better with 0.62mm or bettween about 0.024'' and 0.025'', but closer to 0.025''.
I'm thinking about 1 thousandth less hole should reduce fuel consumption around 10 to 12% and get the air fuel ratio pretty close to perfect.

Take a ball bearing small enough to fit the counterbore on the bottom, place it on a hard surface and whack the ball bearing with a hammer. Every whack willl shring the hole about .005". Could use a in punch with a radiused end

I also want to have a library of Honda carburetor jets.
Today or soon #62s goes in my 196cc Kohler Honda clones and one of the #65s goes to replace the #69 in a 212cc engine later on.

I'm going to say the log splitter is working great. I'm already burning wood I split 2 or 3 months ago. Some pieces of wood that I split extra small and thin are already dry.
Big chunky prices intended for the coal furnace are still suspicious heavy. I bet if I split them and put the moisture meter on the wood I would be seeing 50% to 70% moisture on the inside.

I removed the spark arrestor screen which won't be needed once it's running correctly and the exhaust deflector. That with the CAI seems to have leaned it out to only be a bit rich.
The factory WAI, restrictive exhaust had soot collecting around the exhaust.
Oh and when being towed the fuel bowl will tilt and flood the engine with fuel. As if it needs more fuel. The fix for that is when turning off the log splitter I just hit the fuel line shutoff and allow the engine to burn off the fuel in the carb.

Wrong series of engine for that 62 jet. Looks like I only ordered one. So only out $10.
I found a Honda/predator clone jet kit with, #50, #55, #60, #65 which I already have, #70, #75 and #80.
And I ordered the correct #62 jet from another seller.
So between the #60 and #62 I should geter dialed in.

I'm going good to switch over to e10 gas and I should be getting a #62 jet in the mail later today.
I'll run it off e10 dishwater for a while and slide in the #62 jet when it shows up today. If the engine sputters on e10 with a #62 it should be perfect on true gasoline.
If it seems to run good with e10 on a #62 then I also have a #58 and a #60 on the way.
A #62 should do the trick.
I want to be able to use the factory warm air intake and not run rich.

Number drills come in 1/2 jet sizes, ditto for letter drills and a wee bit of silicone carbide sanding can take a couple thou off a drill bit fairly fast. Truevalue and harborfright has some of both drill bits. Bit of silver solder if you overdrill. Get too carried away and it becomes responsive to local atmospheric conditions day to day.

I sure I can find a happy medium where running the CAI in the summer and the warm air intake in the winter will make it very acceptable with ethanol free gas.
I found that switching to e10 definitely leaned it out some but it's still a bit richer than what I would like.

I gave up on trying to tune the epa approved carb it came with. I got a cheap knockoff. The log splitter fuel tank is full of E10 gutter swill. Took the epa pos and S canned it. Main thing the epa approved carb lacked was an adjustable air bleed after the throttle. So I set the air bleed at the obligatory 2 and a half turns from being closed.
The replacement carb appears to have a bigger fixed air bleed orifice. Its the little black plug held in place by being located under the idle speed screw.
The epa approved air bleed plug is smaller allows a more rich air fuel emulsion to be drawn into the engine at part throttle, that's one reason it was running so rich. I believe it's like a holley power valve. The knockoff has a bigger fixed air emulsion orifice which allows a leaner air fuel mix to form for idle and part throttle run.
The knock off carb had an unlabeled main jet. It was definitely bigger than my #65. It appeared to be about a #72. Stsrted off by putting the #65 in there, it didn't want to stay running with the choke open.
The next size up from a #65 but smaller than the unlabeled stock jet was a #69. Put the #69 in and it stated up, didn't want to stay running without a little choke. Ran great once warmed up with the WAI cover on.
When splitting a knot it sputtered a bit.
So running E10 it's a bit lean. Switching to ethanol free gas should richen it up a bit and I can fine tune it with the adjustable air bleed screw.
As long as that sputter at full speed WOT is eliminated it will be just about perfect.
To shut down I turn the fuel off and idle it to cool. Its idling significantly longer. I know it a different carb and all, so it might hold a bit more fuel or have the fuel draw from a mm or 2 lower in the bowl, maybe. But it's definitely idling leaner, it doesn't sink like gas at idle.

I ran the E10 out of it, still got some sputtering and went to a #70. Still needs a bit of choke till it starts to warm up. Now it boggs down a little but generally holds RPM through the toughest knots. I would say it has more power now, even with the factory WAI installed.
Doesn't stink like gas at idle or WOT + full load.

One thing I have wondered is when should I change the hydraulic filter?
Now no need to guess. I found several psid indicator gauges that had been binned. To see if they might be useable for anything I shop ait tested them. The needle starts to move at 5psid and is in the red at about 20psid. Perfect for all my applications.
I'm sure when it first fires up with cold fluid it will be in the red, probably even with a new filter, as long as it comes down from the red when warm I'll leave it be.

Filter pressure gauge and hydraulic temp gauge installed.
Ran it cold, at about 90f and at full speed it developed 8 to 10psid. So there's plenty of filter left.

Next round of ecomodds.
I think I'm going to upgrade the hydraulic filter. It has a 14gpm pump @ 3,600rpm. The hydraulic filter head has 1 inch by 12tpi threads, built in bypasse. The filter on it is a 15gpm, 25 micron 99% efficiency with a 45 micron absolute, very standard 3.66 by 5 inches holds about 1 quart volume, uses paper filter media and has an unknown built-in bypass.
I'm going to see if I can get what I think is a military spec filter, a wix A31A06GA it's about double the size 3.75 by 9 has about a 2.5qt volume. Does "up to 22gpm” has a crazy temperature range of -13 to +246F, filters 6 micron at 99% and 20 micron absolute, uses fiberglass media. I don't even know if I can get it.
If not, then a very common wix hydraulic filter 57123 will work, it's a big hydraulic filter with 8 micron 99% and 25 micron absolute. 3.66 inches by almost 9 inches long.
Neither one has a bypass.

For the engine I think I will throw on a timing advance key. Might do a thin head gasket too and bump that compression a bit. Add an hour meter tachometer and turn up the RPMs to 3,800 to 4,000.

Without a bypass the filter can or the hose becomes the unloading point. Very messy and it only happens when you're in an inconvenient place. Don't take long to empty a 5gallon pail of paint.

Well I can forget about the a31a06ga. Wix doesn't have one in stock, they're made to order and it will take up to 4 months to get it and I'll have to pay shipping. So it will be over $100 before tax.
I'll just get a wix 57123, it will be like $40 and they will have it in 2 days.

The filter head has a built in bypass. For a hydraulic filter the built in filter head bypass is usually around 20psi. Built in hydraulic filter bypasses are anywhere from 10 to 30psi or none. If an engine oil filter gets used the bypass could be as little as 7 or 8psi.

I installed the new hydraulic filter, a wix 57123. It just about cut return back pressure in half.

I also installed and tested the temperature gauge. It hit almost 150F and I wasn't even running it that hard. Not great but not terrible. For mineral oil hydraulic fluid 120F is optional. So I'll need a cooler.
This is why we use instruments and test stuff.

This phone sux I can't get it to take any decent pictures.
Well the spark plug is a white as the undriven snow.
So I would say I got the rich issues fixed.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1694905340

Now I just need to get back to doing some engine mods like timing advance and thin head gasket.

White on the electrode: maybe a touch lean? cant tell if the ceramic bits are covered in ash.

The ceramic looks brand new, no ash or speckeling or glazing appearance.
Speckeling is possible pre-ignition, glazing is lean and way too hot and ash would be lean hot.
I think I'm going to install a 8 degree advance key sooner rather than later.

Looks like it's already got a thin head gasket so no gains there.
I put the 8 degree timing advance on and put the intake and throttle linkage from the briggs and Stratton 208cc engine that was on the woodchipper.
Starts and runs great with 8 more degrees of timing.
The Kohler intake looks smaller, more restrictive because it has additional unnecessary 90 degrees bends. The Kohler intake was only bolted to the carburetor.
The B&S intake also bolts to the throttle linkage plate with a 3rd bolt.
With only 2 bolts the Kohler intake would vibrate independent of the rest of the engine.
Now the intake vibrates in unison with the engine.
Seems like only a matter of time before it would vibrate loose and allow dirt onto the engine.
Also modified a spring to turn the RPMs up to 4,000.

A nice read about hydraulics.
"Contamination causes approximately 90% of hydraulic failures".
https://www.machinerylubrication.com...lic-filtration
So I have an over sized better hydraulic filter and I have a rain proof hydraulic breather tank cap that will be here any day now. Good start.

Add another maybe 5% for over temps on the fluid. Properly maintained hydraulics have age related failures of their system components before physically wearing out.

Hmmm your article states that pressure causes flaking. Didn't know that but it does explain blowing a cylinder open and leaky components

They also highly recommend using an output filter on the pump. This system runs at like 3,800psi. Yeah it's hard to find a high pressure filter for 4,000psi and 15gpm that doesn't cost more than the pump and hydraulic cylinder together.
I think I'm going to stick with the 8 micron filter on the return and call it good.

Instead of the high side filter, do it on the low side input to the pump. Not the same because it wont collect failing pump parts before going through the system, but failing pump parts is a big problem as apposed to wear and dirt intrusion.

The pump has an intake screen.
The problem with putting a filter on the intake is it can cause cavitation.

I found the mythical wix a31a06ga.
Wix don't make them any more but a company called "main filters" does. The MF0617088 is their replacement.